Exposed

Man who tried to delete incriminating CCTV footage of stabbing is jailed

Kyle Pakes tried to erase footage of the attack by Jonathan Wrigley on Jamie Mulcahy, who suffered serious brain damage and died a year later

Kyle Pakes (left) and Jonathan Wrigley

A pub worker who tried to erase incriminating CCTV following the stabbing of a pub worker has been jailed.

Jamie Mulcahy, 26, was left ‘seriously brain damaged’ after he was attacked in Bacup, Lancashire, by pub manager Jonathan Wrigley in November 2014.

He had been receiving round-the-clock care until he passed away on December 5 last year .

Kyle Pakes, of Lennox Walk, Heywood , was instructed by Wrigley the morning after the attack to delete CCTV from the pub which showed the incident outside and Wrigley changing his clothes and washing his blood-covered hands in the sink, Burnley Crown Court heard.

But the court heard that he failed to carry out the task despite receiving telephone instructions from a CCTV engineer and it was later deleted by Wrigley’s cousin Curtis Munro.

Pakes, 22, pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice and was jailed for 10 months.

Stephen Parker, prosecuting, told the court how Wrigley stabbed Mr Mulcahy with a ‘butterfly knife’ during a 20-man town centre fight and then ‘made various attempts to foil the police investigation, one of which involved the actions of this defendant’.

The court heard Wrigley contacted the engineer who had installed the CCTV.

Mr Parker said: “He told the engineer something about his girlfriend and not wanting her to see it and that there may well have been some infidelity.”

Pakes later called the engineer from the pub.

Mr Parker added: “He said Pakes seemed unable to read properly and came across as a bit thick.

“He was really struggling with the man he was speaking to who was struggling to understand the system.”

The court heard Pakes became ‘frustrated’ after two or three minutes and told the engineer to ‘just leave it’.

Munro then went round to the pub and spoke to the engineer for around 10 minutes about deleting the CCTV.

Mr Parker said: “It was believed at the time that Munro had been successful but a technical expert for the police managed to retrieve it.”

Wrigley, 34, of Todmorden Road, Bacup, pleaded guilty to wounding and was jailed for 13 years and six months in July .

Munro, 21, of Queen’s Park Road, Heywood, pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice and was jailed for 16 months at the same hearing.

Judge Ian Leeming QC said it was an ‘extremely serious offence’ and there ‘must be immediate custody’.

Sentencing, he said: “This is a very serious offence but less grave than Munro as there was not the same determined effort and it didn’t work.

“You set about the task maybe out of misplaced loyalty. You were not very skilled at this, even under instruction. The engineer doubted your intellectual capacity and ability generally.

“I accept you’re genuinely remorseful.

“It’s very rare for a sentence for this offence to be suspended and it’s clear that neither a community order nor a fine could be justified. There must be immediate custody.”

Philip Holden, defending, said Pakes was Wrigley’s ‘first port of call’ because he knew he would be an ‘easy touch because of his intellect’.

He said: “Wrigley was a man in his 30s who deliberately sought out this defendant for those reasons.

“Wrigley didn’t want to be anywhere near that pub and wanted to continue to distance himself from it. He was working at the pub and knew his way around it.